Statement by the Minister for Health and Social Services: Public Health (Wales) Bill

Ground-breaking public health legislation which would have helped protect people from harm and create the conditions to help people live healthier lives has been voted down by Assembly Members.

Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford said yesterday:

“I am deeply disappointed that the Public Health (Wales) Bill will not pass onto the statute book today. It puts to waste five years of careful preparation and constructive work with a very wide range of stakeholders and supporters.

“There will be widespread anger that opposition parties, who had exerted a real influence on the Bill, failed to support it into law and abandoned all the important protections for the public it would have put in place, preventing a range of public health harms. They chose not to do so and they must answer for their conduct.

“It would have introduced important new measures to improve the provision of pharmacy services across Wales and the provision of public toilets for the young and old; it would have introduced a ban on intimate piercing for children under 16 and new outdoor smoke-free places in hospital grounds, children’s playgrounds and schools.

“Today was also an opportunity to protect a generation who have grown up in a smoke free environment from re-normalising smoking.”